American kidnapped in Yemen as airstrikes target UNESCO site

The officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the instructor works for an English language institute in Sanaa and that he was taken from his house to an undisclosed location.

It was not immediately clear if the American was kidnapped or arrested.

The officials provided no more details. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the press.

The abduction of foreigners is common in Yemen, where militant groups such as al-Qaeda and tribesmen use hostages to raise funds through ransom payments or bargain for the release of prisoners.

Earlier, aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition hit the UNESCO-listed Old City of Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa after the rebels fired a missile at Saudi Arabia overnight.

The missile launched at the King Khalid air base outside the city of Khamis Mushait Monday evening was intercepted by the kingdom’s air defences and its launcher destroyed, the coalition said. But it sparked intensive retaliatory airstrikes in the early hours of Tuesday.

Around a dozen bombs or missiles hit the headquarters of the National Security Bureau in Sanaa’s Old City, causing damage to neighbouring homes which left at least one civilian dead and three wounded, witnesses said.

It was the first time that the headquarters had been targeted by the coalition, which has come under heavy criticism for previous strikes on the historic district, which is world-renowned for its multistory, rammed-earth tower houses.

The coalition also bombed the Defence Ministry, near one of the gates to the Old City, ministry staff and residents said.

A coalition strike on a checkpoint in the capital’s northwestern suburbs killed two rebels and wounded four, residents said.

Two rebel military camps in the Sanhan district, southeast of the capital, also came under attack by coalition aircraft, tribal sources said.

There has been heavy criticism of the high civilian death toll from the air campaign which the coalition launched in support of beleaguered President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi in March last year.

More than a third of coalition strikes have hit civilian sites including schools, hospitals and mosques, according to a survey by the Yemen Data Project published in the Guardian last week.